This is part of a continuing series of posts on therapy ideas to support assistants (SLPAs) and paraprofessionals in the schools in their work with students and their supervising SLPs.
Whether it’s conversation, behavior, or even attention, there’s a lot to think about! This month we’ll touch on some ways to draw conversation out of your more reticent students, and make the conversation you have with chattier students more focused on your speech and language goals.
For quieter students, or those with goals around increasing verbal output:
- ask open-ended questions before you start the activity - give students a chance to understand the context
- Before you read Bear Snores On, students have to know about hibernation and bears. You might ask, “Did you know that bears sleep all winter?... No? That’s called hibernation.... Can you say that? ‘Hibernation’.” Result - very little language from your students, maybe ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and repeating a word after you. Instead, you might start with, “What do you think bears do all winter?” If they don’t know anything about hibernation, you’ll have to do some teaching, but this is important teaching to do if they’re going to understand the book! Then you can ask questions like, “What goes on around them while they’re sleeping?” Read more about encouraging speech and language through shared reading on this recent AHSAsphere blog by Stephanie Sigal!
- For older or students this might mean giving context to a history lesson ("What else do you know about this time?"), thinking of ways they can find answers ("What could you use a glossary for?"), or looking for the big picture ("Why do you think your teacher has given this assignment? What are 8th graders supposed to learn from this?")
- offer the chance to finish sentences you start. You might start, "Oh, he looks sad. Maybe he's sad because…" Let them answer, repeat or rephrase their answer and add, "Or maybe…" and then, "Can you think of any other reasons?" Give them the structures you want them to use, let them hear how it sounds, and then give them lots of opportunities!
- ask students to talk about ways they can carry over what they’re working on to the rest of their lives - "Where do you think you could use this?" "Do you ever hear other people use sentences like this?" "When is the next time you think you could use this word?"
- This gives you a chance to tailor your work, practice, feedback to their familiar contexts
- This gives students a chance to plan some practice on new or developing skills
For chattier students that need focus for their conversation:
- be sure they understand the goal. They should know why they're coming to speech in general, and what the focus of their therapy session is that day.
- Every session should follow a format of a) here's what we're going to work on, b) let's work on it, c) here's what we worked on.
- There could be a place on the whiteboard or a special card on the table to show (pictures or words) what the focus is for the day.
- Finish each session by thinking of an opportunity for the student to use something they worked on that day.
- use nonverbal cues to redirect and refocus the conversation when it wanders
- Sometimes you might need to interrupt students to bring them back to the activity at hand, but interrupting can lead to verbally engaging, negotiating, explaining… before you know it you are all off-topic again! Try a non-verbal redirect by pointing at the visual representation of the topic for the day (see above), and prompting or waiting for the student to bring the conversation back himself.
- Have the student come up with a visual reminder for rate (snail, turtle, hourglass) or volume (horn, ear) that you can point to instead of interrupting the conversation to remind her.
To continue reading at TIME Healthland, please click the following:The proposed change would consolidate all three diagnoses under one category, autism spectrum disorder, eliminating Aspergers syndrome and P.D.D.-N.O.S. from the manual.
This is part of a continuing series of posts on therapy ideas to support assistants (SLPAs) and paraprofessionals in the schools in their work with students and their supervising SLPs.
SLPA's and paraprofessionals are often the eyes and ears for SLPs with large caseloads, or for those SLPs working offsite in a Distance Service arrangement. Because you may see some students on your caseload more frequently than the SLP, it is your responsibility to get the necessary information to your supervising SLP so that he/she can make good decisions about the course of therapy. This is often in the form of hard data from your therapy sessions — 70% accuracy of initial /s/ at the sentence level, 60% use of irregular past tense in an independent story retell, etc. But there are cases where this may not be enough. What other information is useful to share? And how can we share in an efficient and confidential manner?
- Your observations of students' health, interests, and engagement and any recent changes are always valuable. Have they lost their front teeth? Do they talk about the fights they get in on the playground? Are they in tears over math? These observations can help give a more complete picture of a student, but they also may help your supervising SLP determine which goals to target, and whether or not new goals need to be discussed.
- New technology has changed the way we communicate with each other - and also the kinds of information we can exchange! Instead of your notes on a session, could you share a video of your student giving his classroom presentation? Or a recording of a language sample may give just the right information. Smart phones and tablets like iPhones make this kind of exchange quick and easy. Some apps (like Notability) even support automatic synching of documents and recording with Dropbox - a place you can store shared documents. NOTE: If you are recording sessions or parts of sessions with students, it is important that you have written and express permission from parents.
- The most important step you can take towards effective communication with your supervising SLP is to make sure that you have a regularly scheduled meeting time (weekly, ideally) to discuss your observations and questions, as well as your SLP's questions and plans for therapy. An agenda is helpful to prioritize the discussion and keep you within your scheduled time - some items will have to be pushed to the next week, or dealt with at a different time.
This is part of a continuing series of posts on therapy ideas to support assistants (SLPAs) and paraprofessionals in the schools in their work with students and their supervising SLPs.
Our last post on technology in therapy focused on choosing appropriate apps for the students you're working with and the goals you are targeting. Maybe you've had a chance to download some apps and try them out, and if you have, you have certainly experienced the "time-suck" that can occur when you start to browse the App Store - there's always another link to follow, another search term to try. And of course, you have to play a bit with all those apps you've downloaded. It's easy to feel discouraged when you realize that the "app-world" is constantly changing with new developments and new ideas all the time. How can we stay current? How can we broaden our horizons beyond the couple apps we are currently using? What about online resources and other technology? SLPAs and paraprofessionals and their supervising SLPs work with a broad variety of students, each with their own interests and needs.
One answer is scheduling time regular time (each day or week or month?) to read what people are writing about technology and special education. Set up Google Reader to collect new posts from blogs (Google "speech language blogs" or something that reflects your interests to get started!). I used a couple of speech-language-type blogs I enjoy to find other recommendations, and I also looked at people who were posting interesting speech language stuff on Twitter to see who else they were following.
If you don't want to be so specific about your sources, or you'd like material on more broad topics, use an app like Zite to pull news for you. In playing with Zite (only for iPhone and iPad right now), I created a personalized magazine that updates every hour with sections on Psychology & Mind, Special Education, Linguistics, Knitting, and Russia! Truly a magazine just for me!
SLPAs and paraprofessionals should always operate within the scope defined by state and national licensing organizations and should only conduct allowable tasks under the supervision of a speech-language pathologist.